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How do you make a kick drum that is punchy and deep and bassy but doesn't overload a car stereo?

I know how to make powerful kicks that sound good on home stereo's, but often they overload small boomboxes and car stereos. What's the solution?

You want to make sure that your Kicks are not clipping. You will find that you don't always need to have them as loud as you think to get the same effect your looking for. If you have a bass sound happening at the same time then you need to make sure that they are not competing for headroom.
Eq out the really low frequencies of the kick and play around with layering kick drums. Boosting mid range frequencies will give them a bit more character on inferior speakers

As I'm sure most do, I constantly monitor my mixes on as many sources as possible in order to prevent getting down the line and realizing I need to make a major change...like modifying the kick. Headphones, laptop, monitors, stereo, car, etc. Not sure what to tell you about what specific change to make...guess it depends. If your kick is sample based then you could just try a different kick, but if your kick is analogue then you shouldn't have any trouble making it work. You could always EQ it, but I prefer to change the source material whenever possible.

When I mix, the kick is not the lowest frequency sound in the mix.
I often cut out everything below 80hz on the kick. Sometimes boosting around 250-350hz makes the kick stand out well without popping small speakers like in a car.

Normally the bass is the lowest thing in my mixes.

GJ Orange wrote:When I mix, the kick is not the lowest frequency sound in the mix.
I often cut out everything below 80hz on the kick. Sometimes boosting around 250-350hz makes the kick stand out well without popping small speakers like in a car.

Normally the bass is the lowest thing in my mixes.

man speaks sense

leave that space to something smoother, like a sexy sub bass

i find that in production we tend to make the kicks way way loud just because i l ike the feeling...turns out when it comes out the other end its too much. I would say raise the frequency of your kick drum and maybe compress a bit.


And like was said before, if its clipping its taking away from the rest of the track.

one thing i've gotten into the habit of doing is this:

try and find at what frequency the kick sits at, and cut a notch out of the bass at that same frequency so they aren't trying to fight each other...

thanks

yep. all good replies in here.

cutting out all the low stuff is a must IMO. you don't really need too much sub in the kick for dubstep I find.

short, sharp and punchy works best for me.

Yeah.. i'd second most everything in this thread.

Somthing no-ones mentioned yet though is a technique used a lot in electro and similar is to 'sidechain' your kick drum. Its a clever way of being able to maintain a nice massive floor-stomping WHAMP kick, while keeping other bass in check. It can also be an emmence creative resource once you start delving. The basic essence of sidechaining is you're using one audio signal to operate compression of another. think that massive Benny Benassi track and you'll know what i'm on about.

For anyone who wants to sidechain in Cubase, search for "sidekick vst" in google. It's free. You insert one instance of the plugin on the keytrack and one instance on the track that is to be ducked by the keytrack.

sidechaining the kick & bass will really change the energy of your track-- maybe good for it, maybe not, but def. something to consider. if you want the whole thing to pump-- it's the way to go.